A collaboration between Wikispecies and ZooKeys has been announced. PhytoKeys also joined the collaboration in November 2010. Images of species from ZooKeys and PhytoKeys will be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and used in Wikispecies.

Distinguished Author

A Portuguese zoologist and politician. He was the curator of Zoology at the Museum of Natural History in Lisbon. His work at the Museum consisted in acquiring, describing and coordinating collections, many of which arrived from the Portuguese colonies in Africa, such as Angola, Mozambique, etc. He published more than 200 taxonomic papers on mammals, birds, and fishes. In the 1880s he became the Minister of the Navy and later the Minister for Foreign Affairs for Portugal. The zoology collection at the Lisbon Museum is called the Bocage Museum in his honor. He was responsible for identifying many new species, which he named according to the naturalist who found them.

Species of the week

Flying Pterosaur

Habitat: Some experts think these reptiles lived on open plains or wetlands, feeding much like large storks today. Others think they may have been feeding upon the carcasses of dinosaurs, like modern vultures. Older ideas that they fed on fish at sea like modern albatrosses are now discredited as structurally unworkable.

Can a giraffe-sized animal fly? Apparently it can! It's not a beast you're likely to spot today soaring over your head, yet flying reptiles of this size thrived for millions of years, until the mass extinction event of 65 million years ago wiped them out. Quetzalcoatlus northropi was one of the largest known flying animals of all time. It had an extremely long neck with slender, toothless jaws. The head was topped by a long bony crest. The fingers on the front edge of its wing carried sharp claws that were utilized to grip on prey. Having lacked the muscle power to take off by a rapid sprint, it probably launched into the air with a leap-frog maneuver, relying on all four limbs, or maybe it took off by dropping from the height of a cliff or tree. Its name is derived from the the Aztec feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl.